My BIXI adventures

Last night I had quite the adventure with a BIXI bike.

It wouldn't lock into any bike dock.  I tired the NINE empty ones and no go.

Luckily, I wasn't far from my boyfriend's so I went to his place to call the BIXI hotline.  Yes, I don't have a cell phone; that's another story.

Spoke with Jonathan who assured me everything would be fine.  He contacted a technician who arrived at the BIXI station 5 minutes later.  He wasn't able to work his magic to get the bike locked so he hauled it into his truck.

I checked my BIXI account and all is fine.

What's a BIXI bike? 

It's a bike that's part of a public system that allows you to travel in parts of Montreal from one BIXI station to another.  You can learn more here : http://montreal.bixi.com/rolling-with-bixi/how-it-works.

I have the 1-year subscription since I wanted to use it to get to my boyfriend's place after work.  I often had to wait 10-15 minutes for the bus and realized I could probably bike down to his place faster.  This year they haven't set up a BIXI station at the métro stop I get off though.  So, I get off one stop earlier and bike it down.

I am even thinking of using the bike in the morning, great easy way to get some exercise in.

Tour De L'Ile on a rainy day

Yesterday was the Tour de L'Ile.  I biked it again with my boyfriend.

It was pouring rain the entire time we were out there biking.

We biked through a quarry coming out of there splattered in mud.  I had some in my face and my glasses ( I spent most of the time wiping them )as well as all over my legs.

When we got home we had to hose ourselves down as well as the bikes to get rid of the mud.

What I learned?  We can be a crazy, passionate bunch of people when it comes to biking.  Those cheap, plastic rain ponchos ( paid them only a dollar ) are very helpful in keeping you dry.

Tour de L'ile

Yesterday was the 25th edition of the Tour de L'ile. It is a biking event where the streets are closed off to car circulation for 50 km. Here we see the departure which was held at Jeanne Mance park.

The sun was out with a few clouds as we see in the picture above. It did get totally covered over the course but luckily we did not get any rain. I ended up getting a flat and waited a bit for mechanics to show up; they were very busy this year contrary to the first aid personnel. I had two holes in my inner tube so they patched those up and I was on my way; only to flat out again. We hailed down other mechanics and 6 of them stopped to help me. The inner tube had to be changed since the valve was broken. It took a 7th guy to stop by to have the right size inner tube. We did have lots of great laughs while they changed my tube.

The Cirque du Soleil is also celebrating their 25th anniversary and participated in their own unique ways.





We saw parts of Montreal we don't usually bike to and all in all it was a great afternoon with lots of laughs with the other riders. The news mention we were around 35 000 participants.

My first post

I have now joined the world of bloggers. This blog will be about knitting but also about my life in Montreal and as a vegan. Be prepared to read a lot about my two lovely cats Lola and Balou.


Bowling and biking will be discussed here at length as well as they are two passions of mine. Some food pics may show up here and there as well.